1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and/or system of navigation inside an enclosed space or in a space not readily viewable to an operator.
2. Description of the Background of the Invention
State-of-the art imaging devices have been developed to capture pre-operative and intra-operative images that are used in planning and execution of diagnostic and therapeutic medical procedures. However, some such imaging devices expose patients and operating room staff to intensive radiation or magnetic fields and do not typically allow correlation of images with a patient. Surgical navigation systems have also been developed that allow correlation of images with a patient but add cost and complexity to the procedure. Moreover, known surgical navigation systems do not satisfactorily solve the problem of hand-eye coordination, as the view of the images on a display monitor is not correlated with the spatial position of the patient. To overcome the hand-eye coordination problem, head-mounted displays are available, but require a user, such as a surgeon, to wear a head-mounted fixture.
In one example, tracked display monitors in conjunction with surgical navigation systems are available to correlate images with the spatial position of a patient. However, to locate the display monitor and correlate displayed images with a patient, a tracking system to sense the position of the display monitor and the patient is needed, e.g., an infrared tracking or electromagnetic tracking system. Such systems need a separate tracking device for the display monitor and may suffer from line-of-sight issues or field distortion issues. Moreover, such systems add complexity and cost to the overall procedure.
In another example, a system that utilizes a tracked display monitor generally requires a display monitor, a monitor tracker, a video camera, a video camera tracker, and a navigation camera in order to correlate images with the spatial position of a patient. In addition, special efforts are required to keep the video camera tracker, the monitor tracker, the patient tracker, and eventually a tool tracker, simultaneously within the view of the navigation camera. In addition, such a surgical navigation system is not adapted to align the viewing direction of the video camera with the viewing direction of a surgeon.